Seeing how the last "vs" topic became a little popular, got a few pages of responses and some good discussions going I figured I'd make another one. Maybe I'll make one once a week but we'll see how popular they are. If they start to go downhill than I'll ditch the whole idea but for this weeks "vs" thread I'm gonna compare Disgaea Hour of Darkness with Final Fantasy Tactics (the original one) Reason being they are both cherished games by many people and probably two of the most popular tactical strategy RPG's in the genre so discuss same rules apply as the last thread.

They're pretty different beasts (despite both being strategy RPGs). FFT has a good, serious story. Disgaea is good for completely different reasons. The story is just silly, but it's genuinely funny and has endearing characters.

In terms of gameplay I honestly prefer Disgaea (and no, not because of the optional mega grinding, I never do that crap and you don't actually have to). Admittedly it's far from a perfect system, but mechanically FFT is a broken mess. Yes, it pioneered the SRPG genre and is important historically, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a broken mess. There are so many ways to completely abuse the system and the game has some major difficulty spikes that will punish you if you're not abusing things.

So I guess I'm going to have to disagree with the majority here and say it depends on what kind of mood you're in, but I would honestly lean towards Disgaea.

(Also don't touch FFT unless it's the PSP version because the story is the major appeal of the game and the original translation was abysmal. Actually I think there's a smartphone/tablet version of the game that also uses the PSP translation, but I haven't played it so I can't comment.)

I'm also on the FFT crowd. While I did like the first two Disgaea's quite a lot for me it doesn't even come close to Tactics.In the end I think it comes down to what Fadedsun said, Disgaea is a grindfest, while in Tactics I feel like my overall strategy and skills acquired make much more difference than tons and tons of levels.

In all my playthroughs of Tactics the only thing close to grinding I ever needed to do was to teach auto-potion to a few of my characters every now and then. In Disgaea I feel like if I'm not grind I'm always at a disadvantage.

They're pretty different beasts (despite both being strategy RPGs). FFT has a good, serious story. Disgaea is good for completely different reasons. The story is just silly, but it's genuinely funny and has endearing characters.

In terms of gameplay I honestly prefer Disgaea (and no, not because of the optional mega grinding, I never do that crap and you don't actually have to). Admittedly it's far from a perfect system, but mechanically FFT is a broken mess. Yes, it pioneered the SRPG genre and is important historically, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a broken mess. There are so many ways to completely abuse the system and the game has some major difficulty spikes that will punish you if you're not abusing things.

So I guess I'm going to have to disagree with the majority here and say it depends on what kind of mood you're in, but I would honestly lean towards Disgaea.

(Also don't touch FFT unless it's the PSP version because the story is the major appeal of the game and the original translation was abysmal. Actually I think there's a smartphone/tablet version of the game that also uses the PSP translation, but I haven't played it so I can't comment.)

Don't worry Kev, you my friend are not alone.... while my arguments may be weak, and I can objectively see in many senses where Tactics is the superior title.... my vote still goes for Disgaea.... However, my reasons for this are mainly subjective (Disgaea caters to my personal taste way more...) and as such I haven't got much of a leg to stand on here....

The main appeal of Disgaea over Tactics to me is the vast amount of content and control over your team. It has been ages since I played tactics mind you, but I don't recall having a dire need to create and beef up custom troops in Tactics.... In fact if I recall correctly, I found myself hard pressed to have little reason to even worry about custom troops by the end of the title..... On the other hand story characters felt completely essential to victory, save a few of the custom classes that were just ungodly powerful by virtue of their mechanic or skill. Disgaea is the completely opposite end of the spectrum in this regard..... you can virtually make any class a force to be reckoned with and if you are at all concerned with post game content and optional stuff you'd best do just that.

Now, I'm no grinder by any means.... I like to play a game, enjoy the content and move on for the most part..... I usually could care less about maxing out this or that.... However with the Disgaea titles, becoming super-leveled always had a pay off that proved worth it to me.... first of all, I always found the item worlds to be addictive as all hell (I am certain I logged more hours in the item world of each disgaea title vs what I logged totally with all of tactics).... secondly it wasn't just large impressive numbers I was after.... those large impressive numbers enabled me to take on new maps and see new content....... Those two factors alone kept me on-board for more disgaea well beyond the credits which is something I rarely find myself doing.... usually when I finish a game, I am eager to move on to the next....

Lastly, disgaea pioneered the over-the-top niche anime styled RPG we've all come to know (and hate-Lol).... I just happen to eat this style up.... for as re-hashed and recycled as it has become in the present gen, at the time of disgaea this was a VERY original flavor to savor.

Despite the fact that both games are massively unbalanced grindfests I'm gonna have to go with FFT hands down.

I say this because FFT is flexible as hell compared to Disgaea. You get stuck on a dickmove battle like Riovanes, you still have options like setting up your Knight Ramza as a Wizard by equipping him with Magic and Move boosting items and burning some of that accumulated spillover JP for devastating spells like Flare and support options to further increase your odds like auto potion. Meanwhile, hitting a wall in Disgaea means going back to grind more numbers, either with your ace character's level (since its much easier to scale up to one persons level later than to keep everyone even steven), a piece of equipment (with the side benefit of grinding your characters), fucking with the current law making body (which requires high end stuff either way), or by dropping levels through reincarnation (for the sake of grinding those numbers back up again).

FFT's one major flaw is that it doesn't expect players to fully grasp the intricacies of its system, thus enemies tend to hover around the low end of the scale rather than making better use of the options available to them.

Also, I more often than not, tend to dislike Disgaea's art style and character designs. FFT isn't that hot to me either, but it doesn't remind me of the aughts and all that I dislike about it in the way that Disgaea does.

Also also, the music in FFT alone is worth more than the entire Disgaea series has put out altogether.

They're pretty different beasts (despite both being strategy RPGs). FFT has a good, serious story. Disgaea is good for completely different reasons. The story is just silly, but it's genuinely funny and has endearing characters.

In terms of gameplay I honestly prefer Disgaea (and no, not because of the optional mega grinding, I never do that crap and you don't actually have to). Admittedly it's far from a perfect system, but mechanically FFT is a broken mess. Yes, it pioneered the SRPG genre and is important historically, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a broken mess. There are so many ways to completely abuse the system and the game has some major difficulty spikes that will punish you if you're not abusing things.

So I guess I'm going to have to disagree with the majority here and say it depends on what kind of mood you're in, but I would honestly lean towards Disgaea.

(Also don't touch FFT unless it's the PSP version because the story is the major appeal of the game and the original translation was abysmal. Actually I think there's a smartphone/tablet version of the game that also uses the PSP translation, but I haven't played it so I can't comment.)

no it did not pioneer the srpg genre.... c'mon man i know that you know better and FFT is a blatant expy of tactics ogre.

Part of the reason I loved FFT so much WAS because you could abuse the game. It gave you complete freedom to operate within its systems, and it hasn't been repeated in an SRPG since, not even FFTA/2. Chaos is fun.

Also, I tend to not enjoy whimsy (or anything made by NIS, just not to my taste), so I really couldn't get into Disgaea. The plot, characters, and music in FFT (along with the gameplay) had me hooked on every single level. It's not that I don't recognize that Disgaea scratches an itch (and does it well) for many people, it's just that I don't think I have that particular itch.

Logged

Friends, waffles, work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn't matter, but work is third.

FFTactics hands down. Music, gameplay, story, artwork...all better than Disgaea in my opinion. I will say that Disgaea's humor is fun and the silly over the top feel of the game is entertaining, but I can play FFT and mindlessly grind anytime.